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Now what would be cool is if they could intergrate Yahoo IM so you could blog from your IM window. OF course just being careful that your talk with FitGirl 18/f/US (who is actually FatBloke 37/m/US) isn;t automatically logged:)

Interesting, didn't know that. I am pretty sure I made pitas page in May 1999, so maybe that history is wrong, but good to know. One thing I do know for sure as someone who was involved in weblogs back then, pitas was definitely the first service anyone knew about. LJ exploded around 2001 or so and got really big, but back in 1999 the choices were Pitas (tons of users right away, mostly teens) and Scripting.com (but noone really understoodf how that worked) and then later, groksoup appeared (but noone used

According to an item in the LJ FAQ, LJ was started sometime in March 1999 [livejournal.com] while blogger.com says it was launched in August 1999 [blogger.com]. Those are the two older ones I can think of and if they really are the two oldest it appears that LJ beat blogger to the punch.

"Blogging" is as old as the internet. It hasn't always been called "blogging" (thank Jebus!), but it's always been around. I remember blogging on my own website back in 1996, until I realized that it was a pretty stupid thing to do. If you think people would bother to read your blog, then you're either really famous (and you're trying to get your fans out of your face) or you're flattering yourself.

If you think people would bother to read your blog, then you're either really famous (and you're trying to get your fans out of your face) or you're flattering yourself.

..or you want your friends or family to see what you've been doing if you live on the other side of the world...or you want to keep a journal of your life but don't want to carry around a book and pencil. you can get online anywhere, even on vacation.

i really don't care for all the online journals i've seen; they either had too much of

QUOTE "LiveJournal predates the term 'blog', which is one reason why it's called "LiveJournal" and not "LiveBlog". Back when Brad Fitzpatrick was writing what would later become LiveJournal, I was writing something similar."/END QUOTE

Let's not forget about finger. Probably the earlist easily identifiable 'blog' (what an ugly term) predecessor. Many game developers and security experts had their finger info available for access over www. Those were thoughts and ideas! Unlike 99% of blogs existing today.

Because that results in bloatware. Does everyone want the Microsoft Personal Webserver, the Character Map, Clipboard viewer and... o_0... MSN explorer... *Is off to clear his so called OS components*
[/Offtopic Anti-MS rant]

Just what we need Another place for people no one cares about to post rants no one will ever read. Isn't there enough of this on the net already?

Well that's the tradeoff on the net. Everyone has the ability to publish their thoughts, but it turns out not everyone's thoughts make a good read. That's why search engines exist: to help you filter out the crap.

The problem is, the crap's become so prevalent that it's getting hard to filter it out. I believe Google finally changed their algorithm to lower the ranking of blog sites in searches, but I know that I often ran into times where the only results I could get for several pages of results were stupid blogs that had nothing to do with what I wanted.

I have no problem with the blogs themselves, it's just that they've hit such a critical mass that they interfere with me getting things done at times that annoy

Of course what many people fail to realize is that a large number of (if not most) bloggers don't care if they aren't popular. The blog is there for people who ARE interested, friends and relatives mostly, to know whats up with the blogger, without him having to send possibly unwanted email around, ala the yearly newsletters from family that so many of us love to hate.

Evidently, not quite. There will be "enough" when AOL and MSN and Yahoo! and everyone else offer them and every person has (at least) one. Same as anything else: companies constantly feel the need to make barriers to entry lower and lower until everyone who could possibley want one, has one.

sadly, there was a hole in the language available for "Blog" to fill, as a verb. "writing a journal entry" is too long for these buzz-word filled days. "journalling" doesn't sound right, and it's still too many syllables. "blogging" is short, and to the point.

That said, I hate the word, and it's also pretty inaccurate, as a weblog (the originator of the word 'blog) is a site like Slashdot, not a personal web journal.

ignores the "web", or "internet" part of the action, as well as has a different connotation. "Log" to me sounds too official, like an error log, or a ship's log for a naval cruiser. Most "blogs" are actually journals, as they're not actually logging events. But then we get back to my original point about the words.

For better or worse (worse, I think), we're stuck with "blog". It's been coined, people use it, it's in the lexicon. Hopefully it'll pass quickly, just like the outrageously stupid "information s

Actually, it got to be kind of a fun thing around the office to see what strange things the korean spam would be trying to sell me each day, so I didn't mind them that much:) Now I don't use that email anymore (moved on from that company), so I don't get to "guess what the korean spam is selling" anymore:(

Just like no one would use an OS where you didn't have to compile the kernel yourself?

Blogging is still pretty niche and dominated by techie talk, and a LOT of meta-blogging. Something like this, the AOL blogging service and presumably MSN blogs (was in job ads a few months ago) will bring blogging to the masses, for better or worse.

Blogging is still pretty niche and dominated by techie talk, and a LOT of meta-blogging.

Thats kinda funny--my personal experience is the exact opposite. Of my friends/acquaintances who blog, they are very much not technically oriented--and none of my friends friends who are into computers & technology blog. Obviously too small of a sample size for any real meaning. My friends who blog are bigger into keeping in touch with their friends and might even write actual letters to their friends were it no

>I mean, would any of us really read wil wheaton's site if he just kept it at yahoo?

I would be willing to bet that more people outside of/. would read it then.

Really, how many/. people use AOL, how many/. people think they can make money helping out our Nigerian friends. Yet these things still happen, and make money on them./. users are the minority and I doubt that Yahoo is really considering the/. crowd as their target demographic.

AOL annouced earlier this summer that they were going to set up the ability for their users to run blogs, so now Yahoo has to do it as well.

Having the resources or knowledge to maintain a blog does not make what you have to write in the blog any more worth reading than what the Yahoo-ites have to say. Sadly, many of the technically-savvy have failed to realize this.

The truth of the matter is, if what you say is worth reading on a regular, or even daily basis, someone will step in and provide you with the resources to maintain your blog, thereby freeing you up to focus on your writing. These resource-providers are called publishers. Whether or not the blog-writer has a publisher is a good litmus test for whether I will devote any of my time reading what he writes.

As for keeping up with friends' activities: we use the telephone. Terribly Old School that way.

It's like graphic design. The personal computer programs that have made it cheap and easy for someone to do the *work* of a designer do not magically transform everyone *into* a designer.

I would mod this as "insightful" if I could. I've neglected the content part of the equation. Thanks!

So a yahoo blog with good content is surly better than a self built blog with no/bad content.

The only problem with the yahoo stuff is that you won't (probably) find a person's blog by looking for it on google (or any other search engine besides yahoo). that's okay for the most part, but in an age when everyone uses google, you blog about something and google users will see it.

Dear god, NOT being on google would about the best thing that could possibly happen. The absolute last thing I want are more blogs I don't care about clogging up my search results whnen I'm actually trying to get something done. If people want to share their journals, let them link people they actually know and might have an inkling of interest to it - not throw it in the face of people that don't really give a shit anyway.

That's like saying that the only music worth listening to is distributed by a label. Yes, there is alot of crap out there, but don't assume that it is if it's not backed up by some organization. Listen to my unsigned band [amazon.com]. That's a damn good CD, recorded professionally, with no filler - and not signed to any label.

Of course, it says that Orchard is the label, but you can read about that in my journal [slashdot.org]. (Wonderful irony)

there's dozens of people have have had the intrest and skills to build a blogging system themselfs, but lack the intrest to write actual content into it. kind like my sort of blog i did, i have like 3 month peroids without writing anything there, not that anyone reads it anyways but i've regarded it more as a personal diary i can look at myself(and maybe, just maybe manage to keep the entries for 20 years as then it would be pretty cool).

Somehow this article seems more like a "first!" post than a news story. The actual post on yetanotherblog.com is no longer than the story teaser that Slashdot has posted. And the links (as reported) don't actually go anywhere particularly interesting.

Spent all day reading slashdot again. I posted a comment and it never even got any points. Fark had an awesome story about a guy doing something dumb. I finally have my very own blog so I can share my thoughts with the world.

August 26, 2003Spent all day reading slashdot again. That Microsoft Sux.

August 27, 2003Spent all day reading slashdot again. I hate SCO, they suck.

August 28, 2003Spent all day reading slashdot again. Just upgraded to Windows XP. It sucks.

Cream rises to the top of the bottle, sunshine. If your blog is any better than the average 14 y.o. junior high student's, folks will read it; otherwise, you're just another in a long line of people who thought that they should have been the last person to be admitted to the IntarWeb.

This is just another addition to the idea "I want to be reachable everywhere and I want to let everyone know how interesting I am".
Most people just don't see the point of how this makes them less interesting.

I think blogs can communicate the thoughts that people are having that might otherwise go uncommunicated to others. While there are plenty of thoughts that are pretty much worthless, no doubt looking through enough blogs one will find insights into technology, philosophy, humanity, politics, and psychology.

I don't really see this doing anything to the blog world. If aol did one (or partnered with someone) It could be really usefull. Let it replace buddy profiles, have a little button on AIM to post a blog, Have a read my blog button in an AIM window. Hold the blogs at central server, but serve them locally (the only person who would hit there server would be the user, everyone else would read the blog off of the users computer, like the profiles are now).
Im not really saying this will be usefull in anywa

On a related tangent, how long before our schools start teaching kids how to write in hypertext? I would love for MLA to cover rules like "the linked resource should be relevant to the words that are used to link to it," "never include punctuation in hyperlinks," or "you will die a fiery death if you link the word 'here' to a resource."

Another great site demonstrating what CSS is capable of is Eric Meyers' CSS Edge. [meyerweb.com] There are a few examples that refuse to work in IE because IE's CSS support sucks, but even for those, Eric usually shows a way to hack it to get IE working at least semi-properly. He's also very much a promoter of standards, so everything on the site is W3C validated CSS. Some very cool stuff.

Thought not. Better (less ad-infested) services can be found with competitors. They've stamped the only jewel in their crown, eGroups (now Yahoo! Groups) right into the ground - people only use it now because it's such a pain to migrate a mailing list elsewahere. If this blogging service is as bad as Yahoo! Groups is now, I can't see it taking off (I personally, will be sticking with my Slashdot Journal).

I'm still using their web email, though I'm trying to move away from it. I actually got the email address with Geocities, a long time ago... then I got grandfathered into a Yahoo email account with a 6MB mailbox =).

I also use their financial tools at finance.yahoo.com. There are probably other services, but Yahoo's works fine and doesn't have excessive ads. Not sure if they have pop-ups or not, thanks to Moz.

Suppose Yahoo starts hosting blogs.In three months, it will become popular.In four months, it will become popular with "adults."In five months, Yahoo Blogs will become a premiere conduit for erotic content.In six months, Yahoo Blogs will force the reader to view a full screen ad before reading contentIn seven months, Yahoo Blogs will start imposing bandwidth caps.In eight months, readers of such blogs will be denied access to archives.

I know the sys admin for yahoo, they've been working on a blog system since early this year. As with everything yahoo does, Korea is where they test it.

Korea is actually thier biggest money maker too, there is a avatar system that they have access to and people pay to buy virtual clothes and other such things for their own personal avatar. They make a fortune out of it, it's crazy.

Korea seems to be massive for a lot of things internet related, and faster adapting too, so it's no shock that they'd test it there.

For example, you take a look at the highest trafficked sites [alexa.com]. Not surprisingly, the top sites are yahoo and MSN... but somewhere around #3 you get a Korean site and from there on down you get a pretty solid representation between sites that are primarily American, Korean and Japanese.

My roommate has a Photo Journal [davefry.net] on his web site. While some days are really cool, and he is a really talented amature photographer, most days consist on what he ate for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

I generally use it to figure out what I was doing on a particular day. His girlfriend gets a bit embarrased - she must feel like a rock star at times.

I'm wondering if in the long run this is work Yahoo's time and money. If it is cheap to implement, then why not.

an overly tech oriented replacment for "Dear Diary" and a waste of time for most readers. So unless your the current equivalent of Lewis & Clark or General Grant or Abraham Lincoln it's pretty much just cheap therapy and soap boxes for the commons...

Not trying to create flamebait, but honestly, what use is...

Dear Blog (July 25): Just read an article on Yahoo about the guy with no feet who is walking cross county on his hands to raise money for kids born without ear lobes. Isn't that uplifting???

Dear Blog (July 25) I love my new iMac, it's just so yummy and friendly, not like the evil Micro$oft Winblows. Yuck!

Whereas I used to maintain a regular email correspondence with friends and family, I now spend most of that time writing a blog entry. It represents what I would have said to one or more of my regular correspondents, but it is written for a slightly more general audience. I still use email, but my messages tend to be shorter and more personal -- anything of general interest, I just post in my blog. I made the change because I found that I found that I fairly frequently wrote messages that mixed public an

Like you said, who cares? My blog is just cheap therapy and a soap box. Got a problem with that? Then don't read it, I won't lose any sleep over it. No one is forcing you to read anyone's blog.

I prefer blogging over a private diary because there is the off chance that a friend or random person will read it and make a comment to me, and it will start a conversation. Conversing with other people helps me learn about myself and the world.

Wow! I use yahoo for a certain amount of anonymity, and am still surprised how they get hold of all the addresses to spam them.Now I'll have the opportunity to provide even more info about my perversi..., er I mean interests, political and otherwise - yeah, that's what I meant:)

I was always confused by the concept of a blog. Here's a few reasons I can think to use a blog, and why each one sucks.

1. Personal diary. Since it's public, you probably shouldn't put anything "diary worthy" in it. Also, years from now you can still pick up your paper diary and read it, think all these blog sites will still be around?

2. Updates to family and friends. OK, I can almost buy this, but really do we need to put up another barrier between those we love? I would rather tell my parents news on the phone, than tell them to go read my blog. Also, not everyone you know/love knows how to get to it.

3. "Making your mark on the world / etc". No one cares what you have to say, and no one probably reads it. If you have something worthy to say, make a real website, or find a position in the world where people will be able to hear what you have to say.

My biggest problem with though, is #1. I fear that the tech boom will hurt us big time in about 20 years when we realize all our digital videos, pictures, blog entries, etc have disappeared and we have no paper record of our lives. I am looking at it from a purely personal-records point of view, but it affects society on a much higher level as well.

The biggest advantage of blogs is that it lets you keep in touch with friends and acquaintances you don't normally interact with often. I don't like purely personal journals (they are usually too boring), but journals that mix semi-personal thoughts and intellectual thoughts are quite fun to read. It is a great motivating factor to keep a journal of research work you have done, and to see what other people are working on.

My biggest problem with though, is #1. I fear that the tech boom will hurt us big time in about 20 years when we realize all our digital videos, pictures, blog entries, etc have disappeared and we have no paper record of our lives.

Very good point; I make a point of keeping stuff that's important to me on paper, and one of these days I plan to get some of my digital photos printed. On the flip side, though, we don't need everything about us recorded on permanent media; I see the blog as a good medium for

Personally i think Yahoo has always had a lot going for them.. they should try and keep doing their thing instead of copying Google. Google is a wonderful salad bowl search engine.. but well.. their categorization of things into easy categories has somethingn to be desired. I've alwasy gone to yahoo for stuff when i didn't exactly know what the site was but I wanted to find it by driling down in categories. Yahoo has always been good for that.

Blogs can serve a purpose..Some people on here are just ranting about how the personal experiences, or "dear diary" type of blogs are just flooding the internet, and are completely devoid of any interesting, or entertaining thought. Well, that may be true.. and I'm sure Yahoo! blogs will foster this kind of thing even more (because of easy access, and a large user base), but there are certain blogs out there that are useful, and serve a purpose.

Take my blog for instance (no I'm not linking it..). I created it by using one of those bloggin' apps (pmachine I think..), created my own stylesheet, etc.. So for 1 it looks original. But aside from that, I use it as a way to communicate to my friends and family. I'm away from home (toronto) for the next several months on business in Costa Rica. I don't get to call home that much, and writing emails is tedious to 20+ people, so I update my blog on a daily (heh, okay a few times a week) basis. They reply to me in comments, and it's working out quite well.